Ghosts of Castles Lost
by monsterXmash
Summary: Arya travels back north and visits some places along the way. AU. Future.
1. Harrenhal

**The Ghosts of Castles Lost**

I. Harrenhal

* * *

Peace is slowly creeping back into the realm.

Men have seen enough of war. The world has seen enough of death. The kingdom is scorched and ravaged and razed, but the roads are safer than they've been in years. People pass each other, strangers where once they were neighbors. They are not afraid, they have seen enough of battle to be scared, but are unwilling to look into the faces of those whom they have crossed swords. Brothers were killed. Sisters were raped. And all sides are still both bitter and ashamed.

She finds no need to bind her breasts any longer, though she still keeps her hair sheered short. Out of habit, perhaps, or convenience. Or to remind her of who she is now and what she hasn't been for a long time.

She has lived a hundred lives and died just the same. She has worn a hundred faces and been given a hundred different names. Arry, Weasel, Nan, no one. She answers to Arya if someone calls, but she knows she hasn't been Arya for lifetimes.

She isn't sure who she is anymore.

She has left pieces of her behind wherever she went - to realms so far south that she had to hide her skin from the sun and sand so it would not burn away. To the free lands where women bared their breasts and men dyed their hair the color of rubies and sapphires. She has learned the language of those who veiled their faces, fought with those who adorned their braids with bells, laid with those who marked their flesh with every full moon. She has been to the House of Black and White to live with the men who served the Many-Faced God. She has seen the Dragon Queen.

She longs to go back north, to recover a part of her that she vaguely remembers, and when she makes up her mind to go, she is already half of the way there. She ladens a stolen mount with what she needs, which isn't much. Food she will get along the way. And shelter. She remembers a place from so long ago.

The halls are empty, cavernous, a place built for giants and she, but a ghost. The floors are ash and dirt. The walls, rags and dust. Tapestries fray and peel from the stone, banners with illegible sigils and faded colors. The castle is but ruin and decay - a shame for such a grand place.

Arya recalls Old Nan's stories. She remembers that the foundation is strong with the bodies of men. She remembers that the towers were built with blood, mixed in the mortar and laid between each and every brick. She remembers that the walls were raised with fear the way the walls of Winterfells were raised with magic.

And neither fear nor magic had been strong enough to keep either castle from falling.

But Harrenhal was still alive. Arya could hear creeping amongst the rotting stone. Cats and mice and birds, but men as well. They inhabit the halls for a night or two while on their way to here or there, rejecting the haunting tales of Harren the Black and his sons - of his hubris and the horrors of the ruinous place. The appeal of the monstrous keep is too great for bypassers. Great enough to forget a curse. Great enough to forget a ghost.

But Arya remembers a time when all it took for men to fall was her will and the sound of her whisper.

* * *

_Next:_ II. The Vale


	2. The Vale

**The Ghosts of the Castles Lost**

_II. The Vale_

* * *

A madness has overtaken her, they say, like the Lady of the Vale before her.

But if the smallfolk are to be believed, Sansa keeps it hidden. She is faultless and unblemished like the snow that blankets the peak. She is white and pure and beautiful like her sister remembers. Her hair is piled high in scarlett braids and threaded with shining gold. Her dress is silken and flowing, lovely and bright as her Tully-blue eyes. When she receives Arya in the High Hall, she's sitting on the weirwood throne of the Arryns, a doll, ragged, filthy, held against the pale nipple of her naked breast._ Is that the doll father gifted to you?_ Arya wonders. _Have you kept it all this time?_

Maybe she is mad.

She abides in a hollow castle, far away from the reach of man. The Vale had remained untouched by war, but winter is here and those who had stayed now take refuge at the base of the mountain. They have all left her, alone in the high and desolate keep. The white stone halls are deserted and still and Arya can feel the silence echo through her.

Sansa crawls into her sister's bed that night, laying her head on Arya's chest, and their arms entwine as they clutch each other tight. Sansa can feel the rhythm of her sister's heart against her cheek, her breath breezing through her hair each times she exhales. Sansa asks her to stay. "The winter is cruel," she whispers, "and I am alone."

Arya runs her fingertips over Sansa's skin, and it is as smooth and chilled as porcelain. She thinks that the frozen lands of the north can't possibly be as cold as the castle that her sister calls home. As barren as the sleep that she sinks into night after night. Thrice a widow and a maiden still, they say. Arya wonders if Sansa has ever shared a bed with anyone other than herself.

"We are wolves," Arya reminds her. "And wolves are made for winter."

She can feel as Sansa clutches the doll tighter in the crook of her elbow. _Hold him near, sweet sister. Keep him close._ They fall alseep in Arya's bed, curled together like wolfcubs.

When Arya awakes the next morning, she finds the doll left in her sister's place. The sheets are cold and the stone floor is biting. Her breath, a frozen cloud before her. She bears the chill as her naked feet glide across the room, her lungs filling with ice until she feels as though she can no longer breathe.

The wind whips through the corridors, pushing Arya back, pushing her away, pushing her across the castle until she is running with no air and numb feet. _Sansa,_ she calls. _Sansa. _And the emptiness mocks her, echoing the name until there is only_ Sansa Sansa Sansa _in her ears, in her eyes, in her mouth, the cold wind pushing the shadow of her sister back into Arya's lungs.

She stops at the edge of the Moon Door, the open space still hungry and howling, trying to push her back, trying to lure her closer. Arya clutches her sister's doll and thinks that there are worst ways to die.


End file.
